


Our Time Together

by babywarg (morphaileffect)



Series: Ironstrange Bingo [9]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Drama, Eventual Romance, F/M, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Romance, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-10 06:32:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18654868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/babywarg
Summary: [POST-ENDGAME, BEWARE OF SPOILERS]Tony Stark leaves an interactive hologram of himself to help his wife and child adjust to a life without him. This hologram makes an unusual request of Doctor Strange.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arbonne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arbonne/gifts).



> Inspired by a brief conversation in the comments made to Arbonne’s gorgeous fic, [Nothing Breaks Like a Heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18610735), so I’m dedicating this one to her, too!
> 
> For the Ironstrange Bingo square “Cry.”

His fault was that after Tony died, he stopped looking ahead.

He buried himself in his studies and his work. He wasn’t Sorcerer Supreme, but the earth’s mystical defenders needed a leader.

And he wasn’t saying he _was_ that leader, but _someone_ had to be.

And after the last battle with Thanos, there seemed to be a consensus that the guy who foresaw everything, then helped gather everyone who wanted to fight and bring them to the final battlefield, deserved some serious consideration for leadership.

But before anything became official, he was still the appointed master of the New York Sanctum, which meant he was always occupied - with learning new spells, or with fortifying the Earth’s defenses from that corner of the world.

Anything.

Everything.

To forget.

And to move on.

He had stopped looking into the future. Stopped looking at what was going to happen - if he was going to become Sorcerer Supreme. If any new multidimensional threats had a higher likelihood of occurring.

He was tired. Of thinking too many steps ahead. Of seeing tragedies before they happen.

Of feeling.

When he received a call from Pepper Potts, asking him to drop by the library of their old cabin “at his soonest convenience,” there was a moment of hesitation.

Old emotions related to Tony were dredged up for a moment.

Just for a moment.

Then he let curiosity take over.

Almost immediately, he opened a portal to the cabin in the woods that had been Tony Stark’s last known residence.

His widow, Pepper, was already there when he arrived.

She recognized him. She remembered him from the funeral. From Tony’s stories of his time in space, and on Titan. From the guilt that never truly left his face, whenever he looked at her.

(She had embraced him at the funeral. Kept him upright. Kept him from falling to his knees. Accepted his apology without question. Told him there was no need to apologize: the last five years had been his gift to both Tony and herself.)

“Doctor Strange,” she greeted, getting to her feet, hurriedly wiping tears from her face.

He did her the courtesy of pretending not to notice she had been crying. “Miss Potts,” he answered softly.

They weren’t the only ones there, however.

There was also a hologram.

Which raised its hand at Stephen in greeting.

Stephen stared at it, frozen in place.

Pepper cleared her throat. The sound brought Stephen back to earth.

“He just activated today,” Pepper said to him. “He wants to talk to you.”

 

***

_“How’s it hanging, Doc?”_

Pepper had left them alone to talk. Stephen wished she hadn’t.

This hologram - it was Tony. Tony as he was, shortly before he passed on, barely a month ago.

But it couldn’t be.

But Stephen still found himself answering as if it was.

“Better than yours...obviously,” Stephen said drily.

The hologram laughed. Exactly as he imagined Tony would laugh.

This was so very weird. Technology was _weird._

 _“Glad to see that mourning me hasn’t dulled any of that wit,”_ the hologram said.

Stephen walked up closer to it. It acknowledged his approach by raising its chin, but did not budge.

“ ‘Mourning’...?” Stephen challenged.

 _“Come on,”_ the hologram scoffed. _“All the data gathered by my suits is integrated with the data I have in this library/lab. Labrary.”_ The hologram snorted at its own cleverness. _“And the data says you lost weight since the last time we met. A_ lot _of weight. Have you been eating and sleeping_ at all?”

He decided to ignore the creepy notion that the suit Tony wore was gathering data all throughout their brief time together.

“Bold of you to assume it was because I was in mourning. I could just be busy.”

 _“Except you aren’t, or you wouldn’t have come running.”_ The hologram smiled smugly. _“You know how it was_ really _hard to fool me when I was alive? Sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s going to be just as hard to fool me now. Maybe even harder.”_

Stephen didn’t even need to ask. Hologram!Tony proceeded to explain:

He had uploaded a simulacrum of his consciousness into his lab. It wasn’t _all_ of him, per se, but a shadow of him.

No power to interact with anything in the real world. No power to make executive decisions, or to follow through on them. None of the creativity he had with machines - that proved too difficult to electronically replicate.

But able to converse with his wife and child. A very select group of friends.

And Stephen.

 _“I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Pep,”_ the hologram concluded. _“Think of this as a very secret final resting place. You can visit every time you need to pour out your feelings, to ask for advice, to reminisce on the good old days - or even the bad old days. The AI will adapt based on your needs.”_

“Really? You’re going to listen, for once?”

The hologram grunted. _“I said you could reminisce. I didn’t say I was going to keep from making the odd wisecrack that endeared me so much to you while I was alive.”_

That tugged a corner of Stephen’s lips upward, briefly.

“How long will you be here?”

The hologram answered quickly, as if it was a question it had anticipated:

_“As long as necessary.”_

Stephen frowned. “What does that mean?”

There was a long pause after this, and it seemed the hologram’s gaze turned inward, even as it stayed tracking Stephen’s face. Stephen wondered if it was formulating an answer based on the identity of whoever asked.

If Pepper had asked, for example, it might have said something else. If Morgan, his toddler, had asked, perhaps the answer had been different.

For Stephen, the custom-made reply was eventually this:

_“Stephen Strange, I want to secure the future of my family. I need your help.”_

 

***

 

After his first (long) conversation with the hologram, Stephen approached Pepper to take his leave.

Her eyes were still puffy, cheeks still lightly flushed from crying. But she held herself up with dignity, shoulders back and chin high.

Stephen opened with, “He wanted my help to fulfill a promise he made to you.”

Pepper blinked. “Oh?”

He produced a red rose from thin air.

Unceremoniously, he handed it to Pepper, who reluctantly accepted it.

“...Oh,” she said. The emotion in her voice was unreadable.

“A red rose, every day,” he elaborated.

She remembered Tony’s promise. Of course she did.

“It was a silly thing that he decided on his own,” she said quietly. “You shouldn’t have to do it. Besides, I’ve decommissioned the greenhouse Tony and I were growing roses in. I don’t have time to maintain it anymore.”

She tried to give the rose back. Stephen pushed it back toward her gently.

“Even if some things or people are gone,” he said to her, “some of the traces they left behind are worth preserving.”

It might have been a kindness to her to say that she was right.

That it was a silly promise, that it wouldn’t secure anyone’s future, that he had better things to do, and that it wouldn’t bring anything (or anyone) back.

But Stephen didn’t look into the future anymore.

And just took Tony’s request on faith.

Pepper seemed almost weary as she held the rose close to her chest, both hands lightly clutching the stem.

She’d stopped trying to get Tony to abandon his crazy ideas a long time ago.

Letting someone else keep Tony’s promise after he was gone was just another thing to put up with.

Just another task to add to her daily to-do list.

“You’re right,” she murmured, sounding tired and resigned. “You’re right.”

 

***

 

Stephen hadn’t foreseen that it was going to be difficult.

Being a Sanctum Master meant not keeping set hours. He would sometimes need to rush back to close an interdimensional portal opened by a malicious entity, and leave his sandwich at the corner deli half-eaten. Or wake up in the middle of the night to stop a spontaneous (but minor) invasion.

Besides, prior to his first meeting with Tony’s hologram, he’d already dedicated himself to keeping busy. It stood to reason he would spend entire days engaged in work or his studies.

At the same time - he’d enchanted the watch Christine had given him. Its face would stay broken, outwardly damaged, much like its owner - but the mechanism would work better than it did before. It would accurately tell whichever time on Earth he wanted it to.

And for the sake of a promise he’d made, he’d set it to New York time.

He set it to chime out an alarm at 10 PM. It wasn’t the kind of watch that chimed, but he changed that.

As soon as it rang, he dropped whatever he was doing, and portaled over to Pepper’s cabin.

10 PM was Morgan’s bedtime.  Morgan was an active child, and she usually fell asleep before then.

(Whether or not she would _stay_ asleep was another matter. Her busy mind, so like her father’s, would often wake her up at odd hours.)

(In the past, Tony was awake to keep her company until she got sleepy again. Now that he wasn’t there, the hologram was. Pepper told Stephen as much.)

10 PM was the time that he and Pepper had agreed was the best time for him to drop by. There was no need for Morgan to interact with him. No need to complicate the child’s life with questions about the man who dropped by every day just to give her mother a rose, then vanish.

And Pepper would be there every night to tuck her daughter in - a promise she’d made to herself. That meant, she would always be there to receive the rose from Stephen.

The first several times, she sighed, exasperated, as she received the rose from him. But she always graciously thanked him. And inquired after his day.

The first several times, Stephen simply uttered variations of “It went well. I hope yours did, as well.”

But after a while, Stephen actually began to answer her.

“Attended a meeting of Masters, voted against a proposal for a collective agreement with a trans-dimensional evil, intercepted a ghost boat sailing across Minnesota, and cast a net around Harlem to protect it from an invisible swarm.” He smiled. “How was yours?”

“Oh,” Pepper replied with a smirk, “is this a contest? Because I just rescued 10,000 jobs today from a board vote to migrate an entire country’s manufacturing line to somewhere cheaper. It’s not _quite_ saving the world, but I’m still pretty proud of myself.”

Stephen realized then that some sort of ice between them had melted. And that there had, in fact, been a wall of ice there.

It was just that the wall was no match for a daily onslaught of roses.

Pepper’s life was routinary, but propped up by exciting occurrences. In many ways, it was similar to Stephen’s own.

Her job as both mother and CEO kept her hands occupied nearly constantly, leaving her precious little time to take care of herself. No one could tell she was stressed, because she was great at handling stress, but the pressure got to her anyway. One would only know she was having a hard time if she opened up to them - which she did very rarely.

On the other hand, Stephen’s on-call job as a sorcerer sometimes meant he missed meals, and important interludes for rest - though he was a doctor armed with a few healing spells, he wouldn’t exactly call himself the paragon of self-care. And it wasn’t as if he knew anyone who could _relate_.

It felt as if, by seeing each other at the end of every day, he and Pepper had actually begun to watch out for each other.

Had they eaten? Were they getting enough sleep? Were they up against difficult things? What new thing had Morgan discovered? What had made them happy that day?

All this, they began discussing in their short time together. Before Pepper asked if he wanted to see Tony. And before Stephen said yes.

12 AM was Pepper’s limit. She had to wake up at 6 AM to check her messages, make breakfast, and start a new day fresh.

She once disclosed to Stephen, leaning back on the sofa, her posture absolutely relaxed for a change, that she still felt it was weird to receive roses from him, but that she enjoyed his visits.

“If you have a 24/7 job, you don’t have much time to see people.” She sighed. “It’s just nice, having a friend you can look forward to talking to.”

 

***

 

Morgan was usually in bed by 10 PM. So when Stephen portaled into the living room at exactly 10 PM to find a not-sleepy toddler chattering away while Pepper held her up with one arm, and held a phone to her ear with her other hand - he was mildly surprised.

He was already holding a red rose. This was awkward.

To salvage the situation, he quickly held out his arms. With an understanding, apologetic look, Pepper transferred Morgan into Stephen’s embrace.

Morgan squirmed during the transfer, but was fascinated to stillness when she realized her mother had traded her in for a rose...and that her mother made the transaction smoothly, without breaking contact with whoever was on the other end of her phone.

Stephen actually knew precious little of corporate terminology. But he did recognize the words “audit,” “discrepancies” and “restructuring.”

Morgan tugged at the collar of his Cloak, bringing him back to a more recognizable world.

“Where’s _my_ flower?” she asked, in her tiny, deceptively calm voice.

Stephen found himself smiling.

“I’m sorry,” Pepper was whispering to Stephen urgently. She was flustered, pointing to her phone. “I was - could you - ?”

“Yeah,” Stephen answered readily, hitching Morgan up higher against his side. “No worries.”

To Morgan, he said, “Now, little lady...I see you didn’t know you had a flower, too. That could only be because you didn’t look in your bedroom. Do you want to go see it now?”

Enthusiastic nodding from the toddler. Stephen could have easily portaled them into the child’s bedroom, but Morgan had already thrown her little arms around his neck, preparing that way to be taken up the stairs.

Though fairly light, Morgan weighed on his arms. Stephen realized he may need to get back into strength training. Maybe bulk up a bit more.

Also, holding a small child made him feel rather ancient.

He made sure to call a rose in a delicate vase to Morgan’s bed stand, before they entered the room. So the child gave a loud gasp of surprise when she saw it.

“So pretty!” she exclaimed.

Seeing the rose actually made her eager to get to bed, so she could get a closer look at it. When she was snug under the blankets, Stephen took the rose out of the vase and handed it to her.

All the roses he gave were thornless, of course. So Morgan’s little fingers were safe.

“You remember who I am, don’t you?” he asked the child.

Morgan nodded. “Daddy’s magic man,” she answered.

That made him pause.

He had been expecting to hear _“You were at Daddy’s funeral”_ or something more generic.

He knew that Morgan knew that Daddy was gone. He knew that Daddy had a lot of friends, who mourned him when he went away.

But he did not know that she knew him that way. Was that Pepper’s doing? Or the hologram’s?

“You give Mommy flowers,” she further said.

“Yes, I do.” It was pointless to deny it. Pepper had said Morgan had asked about the source of the fresh rose that greeted her at the dining table, every morning when she went down to breakfast.

Pepper, who had made the commitment to never lie to her child, had simply said “a friend” brought them. Stephen had simply outed himself to Morgan as said “friend.”

“Would you like me to bring you flowers, too?” he asked her.

Morgan happily nodded, clutching the stem of the rose tightly with both hands, in a way that reminded Stephen so much of Pepper, the first time she received a rose from him.

“Which flower is your favorite?”

“This one,” she quickly answered. “It makes Mommy smile.”

Somehow, hearing that made Stephen smile, too.

He never conjured roses for Pepper. Conjuring meant the thing he created would be temporary, would disappear in a few hours, or when willed away.

Shields should be conjured. Weapons. In times of dire need: sutures, medicine and food. But never living things, such as flowers.

Therefore, all the roses Stephen had ever given, had been _transferred_. Drawn from one place, and brought to another.

He had not been worried when it was just Pepper: one rose missing daily from a flower farm somewhere in Finland or Ecuador would likely not be noticed.

But he would have to do it _twice daily_ , now that Morgan had requested it.

And he wasn’t sure how long he had to keep Tony’s promise. Would a year be enough? Two years? Three?

 _As long as necessary,_ was his agreement with Tony’s shadow.

That was Tony’s promise to Pepper. Now, Stephen had made a new promise to Tony’s daughter.

After a short pause, he assured Morgan, “Then you’re getting another one tomorrow. And all the days after. As long as you’re a good girl and in bed by this time!”

As Morgan turned her brightest smile from the flower and toward him, Stephen suddenly felt: it wasn’t going to be a problem.

Surely there were enough roses in the world.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ran on a bit long, sorry about that! Hope you enjoy reading nonetheless ♥

“So, your daughter now knows I give her mother roses.”

Hologram!Tony raised an eyebrow. _“I wasn’t aware it was supposed to be a secret.”_

Stephen shook his head. “It’s going to be a little more...complicated. Now that she knows.”

The hologram rolled its eyes and blew a raspberry. _“You’re not seeing this the right way. You don’t have to sneak around anymore! You can drop by any time of day now, and she’ll recognize you as Mr. Rose Delivery Man.”_

The AI’s flippancy did nothing to ease Stephen’s discomfort. He was seated in the “labrary,” leaning back in the armchair that had been Tony’s favorite, arms folded across his chest.

“Speaking of names, did you actually tell your daughter I was _your_ ‘magic man’?”

Tony spread his arms wide. _“Was I wrong?”_

Stephen massaged his forehead with one hand.

 _“You need to loosen up,”_ the hologram berated. _“Try to enjoy things as they come. Look, when I was alive, I was the fun parent._ Someone _had to be. To bring up my family in a world living in grief.”_

 _A world living in grief -_ what, then, would Tony call this one? A world without Tony Stark: innovator, activist, husband, father and friend - a world without Iron Man?

“I’m not any sort of parent,” Stephen grimly countered. “And I know we never discussed it, but the truth is, I didn’t exactly have the most fun childhood, either. So I’m sorry, but I have no happy memories to draw references from.”

 _“Oh, and you think I did?”_ The hologram sounded amused. _“Literally figured things out as I went along. You’re supposed to be smart, wizard, I’m sure you can do the same.”_

There was a fine line between anger and frustration, and Stephen knew where he stood.

He was just tired of feeling, and out of touch with his emotions, and perhaps what he said next came out in anger.

“I only agreed to help you keep a promise. I didn’t agree to take over your role in this household,” he said to the hologram sternly. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing here. Tony, you should have known better. I have my duties. I can’t prioritize the safety of two people, over the safety of humanity as a whole.”

The hologram scratched its chin, looking thoughtful.

_“But you can’t exactly back out now, can you?”_

 

***

 

Some more visits later, he learned: the hologram was right.

There was no backing out from this.

As his watch chimed 9 PM (he’d set the alarm earlier so he could see Morgan as well, at her request), he once caught himself thinking: it was time to bring roses to his family.

_My family._

Clearly, he meant the family he cared for. But the way his head phrased it still sounded wrong.

He corrected himself, but it took some effort:

_Tony’s family._

Pepper had already told him she looked forward to his visits. He’d already promised Morgan she would get roses from him every day.

And, as much as he tried to deny it, to discipline himself out of it, the pleasant anticipation he felt before those visits had become knee-jerk, part of routine.

And, in the end, he still had promises to keep.

What he could do...was keep his distance.

As best he could.

 

***

 

But keeping his distance was difficult when he heard things like “It would break Morgan’s heart if you didn’t make it to her birthday party” and “Uncle Stephen, you’ll be there, won’t you?”

There were also moments. Like their first fight, if it could be called that - when due to unforeseen circumstances, he got to the cabin past 12 AM, and Pepper was already asleep.

(It was his first time missing a scheduled visit, but he wasn’t about to do anything stupid - like use the Time Stone - to fix it.

He simply left the rose in the vase on the dining room table, where all the new ones were kept.

Pepper refused to accept the next day’s rose. She told Stephen that if it was already too late, and she was already asleep, he could just take that as permission to skip a day. He shouldn’t bother to drop in anymore.

He didn’t know what to do except apologize. Repeatedly. Finally, she calmed down enough to explain: when Tony was still alive, she had asked him to wake her up once he came home, no matter the time, and no matter what he came home from - a mission. A meeting. A party. Anything. And he never did. And it used to drive her crazy.

Stephen understood. He vowed he would wake her up if he came in late. He had never missed a day of keeping Tony’s promise, and he wasn’t going to start just because she was angry at him.

She smiled and accepted the rose, finally, and said she wasn’t angry.

She was just...confused. And sad. And missing Tony a lot. Which he also understood.)

There was also the first time Morgan threw a tantrum at him. He had promised to give her her rose once in the daytime, so she could introduce him to some new playmates she’d made. He forgot, and thought he was still expected to show up at 9 PM, as always.

(She had pouted, folded her arms tightly across her chest and turned her back on him when he tried to give her the day’s rose. When he tried apologizing, she stomped all the way up to her room and slammed the door behind her.

Her angry face was like Tony’s game face, only in miniature. It was his first time seeing it, and it sent genuine chills up his spine.

She only talked to him again when he promised he was going to stay longer the following evening, to watch one of her favorite cartoon movies with her.

It lasted an hour and a half, and Stephen _hated_ every minute of it. He was tempted to astral project out of the entertainment room and get back to his books in the Sanctum.

But he didn’t, because he always kept his promises.

Pepper was there, too. Watching her and Morgan gleefully repeat the child’s favorite lines from the movie made it somewhat easier to tolerate.

And seeing Morgan fall asleep before the end of the movie, snuggled up to her drowsy mom, honestly made it all worth it.)

Helping Pepper around the house (“Magic is so useful, isn’t it?”), reading bedtime stories to Morgan (“I like your voice, Uncle Stephen”)...

How ironic that it was these little, mundane moments that made it difficult to leave.

He’d spoken with hologram!Tony enough times to know what it was going to say, if Stephen ever dared to gripe about all of this:

_“You’re there to listen to the most remarkable person on earth talk about the things that matter to her. You’re there to see my little girl grow up. I would give my arm, my heart, my everything, to have even a minute of the time you’re spending with them now.”_

 

***

 

“Remarkable” really was a good word to describe Pepper Potts.

She was radiant. Even when she was tired, or stressed, or sick, or fresh out of bed, with uncombed hair sticking out everywhere, her eyes bleary and a tiny spot of unwiped drool glistening on her chin, something about her just got to him.

Stephen was fascinated to realize that he’d seen her in all these unguarded states, and yet his admiration of her only grew. And to realize that he’d somehow earned the privilege of being able to call her “Pep” sometimes, as a good friend would.

Nothing seemed impossible for her. Once faced with a task, she simply took a deep breath, tied her hair back, and _did it_ , without complaint or question.

And when finesse was required, she dispensed it in abundance. She had so much of it, in fact, that some of it was passed on to her daughter - who had her father’s intensity, but her mother’s grace.

Was Pepper Potts one of the most remarkable humans Stephen Strange had ever met? Definitely.

But human, all the same.

He was reminded of this when he materialized in their living room, one night, more than a year after the first time.

Morgan wasn’t there to greet him; she must already be in bed. He looked around for Pepper.

And found her lying on the sofa, hand clutching her chest, breathing deeply.

The two red roses he held fell to the floor.

He rushed to her side. On impulse, he reached for her wrist, so he could feel her pulse.

“Stephen,” she said between breaths. “I don’t...know what’s...”

Her pulse was racing. She was sweating, and her trembling was perceptible even to his unsteady hand.

A heart attack, perhaps? A seizure? But the symptoms weren’t consistent with either.

“You should’ve called for help,” he said to her.

“Didn’t want to...alarm Morgan...” She paused to run after her breath some more. “...and...knew you were coming...what’s...happening to me?”

That she’d said _“Knew you were coming”_ was a good sign - it meant she had not been suffering long from whatever this was - and that whatever this was, it wasn’t life-threatening.

Stephen laid a hand on her forehead. A warm golden glow emitted from his palm. Pepper closed her eyes to protect them against the glare.

After a few seconds, Stephen drew back his hand, and the glow vanished. Pepper opened her eyes to see his worried face.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said quietly.

Pepper’s brow knitted. “Then...what --?”

“You’re having an anxiety attack.”

Still catching her breath, she propped herself up on her elbows.

“An - ” She shook her head firmly. “- no. No, Tony was the one...who had...I never...”

“It’s not uncommon,” Stephen interrupted, “for people to take on the symptoms that had been felt by loved ones who are gone.”

“But I never...” She clutched her chest, shut her eyes tight. “I...”

Before she could say much more, Stephen lunged forward and trapped her in a tight hug.

She clung to him as if for dear life, like a person drowning. He could feel the shaky rise and fall of her chest against his own, her pounding heartbeat. Her labored breathing close to his ear.

He held her like that until she calmed down, whispering reassuring words now and then.

It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.

Easy now. Breathe. You’ll be okay.

It took a while, but when the tremors subsided, Pepper allowed herself to be gently let back down onto the sofa.

“I don’t understand,” she confessed to him. “Was it a panic attack? I wasn’t panicked at all. I was just doing the dishes...”

“You’ve been under a lot of stress,” he pointed out. “There’s the merger for your pharmaceuticals subsidiary in France, preparations for Morgan’s entry into first grade, an unpleasant new neighbor, the AC in Morgan’s room breaking down again...things have piled up, Pep. You just never noticed.”

He, himself, had withdrawn into numbness after the final war with Thanos, after Tony’s death.

He knew about things piling up.

Pepper smiled at him. “You...really paid attention, huh?”

Stephen smiled back. But he was mildly surprised, as well.

He _had_ been paying attention.

On top of his tasks for the Sanctum, he had been occupied with Pepper’s concerns. Every single one.

“You’ll be fine,” he assured her, brushing the hair back from her face gently. “I should put the roses in the vase...”

She reached for his hand, held on to it.

“Please,” she whispered. “Stay with me for a bit. Please.”

It felt like the first real thing she’d ever asked him to do. Waking her up if he came in late, taking on some of the chores - those were things he’d _volunteered_ to do.

It was different when the request came from her.

She was scared. Scared, and alone, and he was the only one she knew who could take the fear away.

“Of course,” he assured her. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

 

***

 

It didn’t just happen that one time. In spite of Stephen’s comforting presence, Pepper’s anxiety attacks were getting worse.

It was grief, he knew - grief manifested late, a common enough occurrence.

All the same, he had no spell to calm the grieving heart.

Otherwise, he would have used that spell on himself, the very first time he looked into the many possible futures, and watched Tony die, so many times.

Stephen tasked Pepper to check in with him whenever she felt an attack coming on. She should think of him as her doctor, he said, and think of herself as a patient he was monitoring, to determine if she needed actual medical intervention.

She agreed. She said she hated to trouble him, knowing how busy he was...but she agreed.

Predictably, she had another attack on the second anniversary of Tony’s funeral.

That evening, when Morgan was already asleep, Pepper put on the songs she and Tony had loved to dance to. As the music played, she recounted memories to Stephen, some happy - and some not so.

“You’re a lot like him, you know?” she said pensively, smiling partly at him, and partly at memories of things long gone. “He was smart, and hilarious, and he cared, so very much. And he always, always just wanted to do the right thing.”

She bore up well, up to a point. Then one particular song came on, and she fell silent.

Her lips trembled. Her eyes filled with tears.

When she couldn’t hide the signs anymore she stood, and tried to excuse herself...but Stephen took her by the shoulders, and held her close to him again.

It was a tried and tested method for getting her to calm down. She outwardly seemed to relax, but under his touch she still shook.

Soon he heard her sobbing quietly against his shoulder.

Then, surprisingly, Stephen felt Pepper’s body move ever so subtly, so that their bodies swayed together, slowly, to the rhythm of the song.

Stephen knew he should have stopped it - should have asked what she was doing, at least. Brought them back to reality.

But in their closeness, he was keenly aware that she needed this. Knew it made her feel better.

Knew he needed this, too.

When the song ended, she gently pulled away from him. Her tears had dried, her shaking stopped.

With a final apologetic glance, she left the room. The next song played. Then another.

She didn't return.

 

***

 

Dropping off roses daily was supposed to be a simple, uncomplicated affair.

But after that night, when they danced in the living room, the task seemed to weigh on him more and more.

Stephen wouldn’t break his word. In spite of the heaviness that lay between them, he would bring the roses, would stay if asked.

And Pepper asked. Even if things were no longer the same.

They sat silently together, more often than before - afraid to draw on the conversation, afraid too much talking would somehow lead back to that thing that happened, with brutal irony, on the second anniversary of Tony’s funeral.

Then, one night, as they both sat on the couch, exhausted from their duties, he reached out and covered her hand with his own.

To his surprise, she wrapped her strong fingers around his shaking hand.

Pepper brought his hand up to her lips. Stephen froze.

After a long pause, she leaned closer and touched their lips together.

The touch was so light, it might have been innocent. Stephen felt he was the one who made it _not_ innocent. The fingertips of his other hand touched the back of her neck. She sighed without breaking the kiss, moved her body closer to his.

It lasted a long time. All the while, Stephen’s mind raced - what were they doing? What if Morgan came downstairs and saw?

What was going to happen now?

They didn’t go past a kiss, that night. But one night, many nights later, Pepper would pull him aside, as Morgan worked on a small engineering set in the living room - and Pepper would kiss him on the mouth passionately. Hands would go where they shouldn’t and it would become very, very hard to suppress the little sounds that involuntarily came out of them, so the child in the other room wouldn’t hear.

And one time, during a planned outing with Morgan, Stephen would find himself throwing an arm around Pepper’s shoulders. And Pepper would lean against him, all as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

What happened some weeks later was perhaps inevitable. Stephen found himself in Pepper’s bed, watching her sleep, as they lay naked side by side.

Their first time had been wonderful. Magical. It felt like something was burning inside him - something that had been waiting for so long to be acknowledged.

Even as he lay sleepless afterwards, wondering which one of them had betrayed Tony first.

 

***

 

For the first time in what felt like the longest time, Stephen was seized with the compulsion to look into the future.

To see where this was going. To know that he had not made a complete mess of their lives.

He didn’t want to see alternate realities. He just wanted to see straight ahead.

Into what was coming.

He didn’t need the Time Stone for something so simple. So, after one last, lingering look at Pepper’s sleeping face, he simply closed his eyes.

And _saw._

(The legend of Tony Stark would never fade. The inventions he had left behind, the stories people told of him, would keep him in everyone’s memory.

If anything, he would become even _more_ dearly held in everyone’s hearts - would attain the status of modern-day myth.

Stark Industries would keep its status as an industry leader - would even grow and expand, thanks to the shrewd business sense of its CEO.

Pepper would don the Rescue armor again - several times.

Morgan would grow up to be a stunning young woman [but she would go through an unusually difficult rebellious phase as a teenager. God help them all.]

There would be threats surrounding their not-so-normal life. Enemies. Dangers lurking around every corner.

But in the end everything would be...

_Fine._

Because Uncle Stephen would be there.

Because Doctor Stephen Strange would be around to help, every step of the way.

Even if he would soon take on the title of the Sorcerer Supreme.

And once that happened, there would be an end to the roses. It would, finally, be time.

He would spend more time in the New York Sanctum, see Pepper and Morgan less. But he would still drop in to see them whenever he could. And sometimes, they would drop by the Sanctum to see him.

This first time, in Pepper’s bed, would not be the last time for the two of them. There would be many, many more times, in many other places.

Many occasions to laugh. To cry. To hold each other close.

His dedication to Pepper and Morgan, the way they felt about each other, would not change. They would still be, in the end, his family.)

Stephen opened his eyes slowly.

_My family._

The woman lying next to him. The child sleeping in the next room.

The love he felt for them. The love they felt for him.

He saw all of it as it was. As it would be. _Should_ be.

And, without knowing exactly why, he felt tears escaping the corners of his eyes.

 

***

 

Stephen couldn’t shake the thought that Tony had foreseen this.

Knowing Pepper as well as he did, Tony had foreseen that Pepper would come to a breaking point. That she wouldn’t rely on just anyone, when it finally happened.

That might have been why he had asked for Stephen’s help.

Why Stephen? He could have asked for Rhodey’s help. Or Happy’s. Someone who was already close to the family.

But perhaps he thought Stephen could have foreseen this, as well.

Perhaps he had simply thought Stephen was in the best position to help, being a doctor _and_ a mystic.

So the best thing to do was to confront Tony about it.

The first thing he did was try to confess about what happened between him and Pepper recently. But the hologram brushed it off.

Its programming was tied to the house, it said; of course it would know what was going on in it.

It was simply no big deal to the AI. It already knew a lot of things.

“So you also knew,” he asked, “about Pepper’s condition.”

The hologram didn’t answer right away. It took on a sad look, a familiar one to Stephen.

 _“I feared,”_ it answered. _“She was there for me during the worst of it. I didn’t want it to be one of the things about me she would carry around. But I have no control over things like that.”_

“And you think I do?”

The hologram seemed to study his face.

 _“I knew you would be good for her. I can only do so much. Whether or not she got the anxiety from me, she needs someone who can be there. She needs_ you _.”_

In Stephen’s vision of the future, Pepper no longer had anxiety attacks. He wondered if it was just because his visions decided not to show them to him, or if they simply _weren’t_ _there_ anymore.

If his presence in her life really did make it better.

_“Stephen...I want you to be happy. Of course, I want Pepper and Morgan to be happy, too. And I knew: there was a way to make all that happen, all at once.”_

Why would he want Stephen to be happy? He was the one who’d condemned Tony to an inescapable fate. The one who, in the end, took him away from his second chance.

 _“One thing you forget, Doc. Whether it was a good or bad thing, I am -_ was _\- the Futurist. That means, you’re not the only one who can see the many different ways things can turn out.”_

“But, Pepper and me...how could you have known?”

The hologram laughed heartily, even clapping its hands once.

 _“I can’t believe she never told you,”_ it crowed. _“We tend to like the same people, Pep and I. And I mean ‘like’ in every sense of the word.”_

Was that a confession?

Good Lord, it was, wasn’t it?

Tony had left a confession of thirst with his AI.

 _“It’s no surprise that someone as wonderful as Pepper Potts would fall for you, Stephen Strange,”_ the hologram relentlessly continued, looking him up and down. _“You’re not so bad yourself.”_

“Please stop,” Stephen groaned, covering his face with his palm.

The hologram answered with a smirk, but thankfully, dropped the subject. It paced the small area it was projected onto.

_“One day, Doc, this program is going to self-terminate. It’ll depend on the data gathered from the people who visit, and the data tells me it’s going to be soon._

_“Take you, for example - when you come in here, you no longer exhibit changes in certain vital signs which indicate either grief or guilt.”_ A sharp pause, eyes narrowing. _“Except for right now. Would you just - quit beating yourself up in my presence, please? It’s not cute.”_

“It’s not something I can control, jerkwad,” Stephen snapped. The AI chose not to respond to this.

It felt like the start of a monologue it had been waiting to deliver for some time.

_“Pepper, on her part, rarely comes to see me now. She feels...empty when she talks to me. Maybe because I have nothing new to tell her. And maybe because she has someone else to talk to, someone who responds in ways she needs._

_“And Morgan...she’s realized that I sometimes repeat things. AIs would do that. And she’s realized, I’m not the one who can give her hugs or take her to the zoo or say the reassuring words she’s looking for. I don’t feel like her daddy to her anymore.”_

That wasn’t true, Stephen wanted to argue. But it was an objective fact that Morgan didn’t turn to the hologram as much as she did when she was smaller.

Morgan was growing up so fast. She was going to start first grade in a couple of months. But she still beamed when she saw Stephen. Still breathed a small, happy sigh when he gathered her up in his arms. Still said “good night” and “I love you, Uncle Stephen” with a smile on her lips, as he turned off the lights in her room.

Stephen understood what the AI was saying: her father wasn’t in the library. Wasn’t where they had stored Tony’s ashes.

That was where “Daddy” was. But the one she would grow up recognizing as a father came to see her once a day, bringing roses for her mother and herself.

“Do you really monitor the feelings of the people around you?” Stephen asked. “So when we were on Titan, that time...”

_“You mean the kiss?”_

So direct. It made Stephen fall still. And the machine grin mischievously.

 _“Yeah. This AI knows about that, too,”_ the hologram chuckled. “ _You’d just come from looking into our many possible futures. All 14 million something-something. Your bio readings were all out of whack. You were bound to do something weird. Like throw yourself off a cliff. Or kiss me._

 _“I mean, I was already registering that you_ liked _me liked me back on the flying donut. I didn’t need my instruments for that. But you were_ way _out of sync after doing your magic...thing, so I figured, you must have seen something to unbalance you.”_ The AI raised a finger to emphasize: _“I tried asking what you saw that brought that kiss on. But you said, and I quote: ‘If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.’ ”_

Even that, Tony had programmed into the AI. The kiss. What Stephen had said after - and then said again, at their very last time to speak to each other.

 _“And if I remember right, I kissed you again and then said you had extremely lousy timing.”_ The hologram gave off a regretful sigh. _“Our time together wasn’t a lot, but...it sure was something. Fuck it, I would kiss you right now if I still had lips.”_

The inside of Stephen's mouth felt dry. "Does," he ventured, "Pepper know - "

 _"Yes,"_ the hologram readily answered, its face completely deadpan. _"We had so very few secrets between us. Give yourself time...you'll get there, too."_

“Tony,” Stephen interrupted, “I had - still have - nothing but the highest respect for you. Everything I’ve done, I -- “ He struggled to find the words. “I wouldn’t take anything away from you.”

 _“I know.”_ The hologram smiled sadly. _“What Pepper and Morgan have given me, no one can take away. But they need to keep going. And so do you. It’s time I thanked you for the five good years you gave the three of us.”_

“Uncle Stephen...?”

Morgan’s voice. Morgan’s soft footsteps coming down the stairs.

 _“Make the most of the time you have with them, Doc,”_ the AI said by way of goodbye. _“For me.”_

Stephen got to his feet.

Morgan went straight for a hug from him.

She barely spared a glance for the AI that stood silently watching, a distant look on its face.

“I thought you went home already,” she said to Stephen. “I woke up and I can’t go back to sleep.”

Stephen stroked her hair. “What’s keeping you up?” he asked her. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? Did you have a bad dream?”

“I’m bored,” she answered. “If you don’t have to go yet, will you play with me?”

 _Stay with me_ , he heard in Pepper’s voice. And _Make the most of the time_ , in Tony’s.

“I don’t have to go yet,” Stephen said honestly. “What are you in the mood for?”

“Videogames,” she said with a cheeky grin.

“No,” he firmly replied. “Your mother said no more than two hours a day, and you already had your two hours after dinner.”

“Aww.” She pouted.

“I know - let’s do that 3D puzzle Uncle Bruce gave. Maybe the two of us could finish it faster.”

Morgan considered this seriously. She did love working on that puzzle. And the more she thought about finally finishing it with Uncle Stephen, the more she liked the idea.

“Fuck it,” she chirped. “Let’s do the puzzle.”

“Hey!”

She chuckled impertinently.

She must have overheard that last leg of his conversation with hologram!Tony, Stephen realized. She was _probably_ going to bring it up while they were doing the puzzle.

Stephen spared a moment for remorse. He also _probably_ should’ve had the presence of mind to stick himself and the hologram in a mirror dimension as soon as it started talking about “the kiss.”

But fuck it, indeed.

Pepper had resolved never to lie to her child. Stephen ought to do the same.

“We are doing that puzzle,” Stephen warned, “but we are _not_ using magic, okay? Also, we are having a long talk about words you’re not even supposed to know about yet.”

Words, and other things, Stephen said to himself, inwardly sighing.

She nodded, some strange how excited at the prospect of being lectured to.

She reached for his hand.

As they left the library, hand in hand, Stephen looked over his shoulder one last time at the AI.

Tony’s hologram blew a kiss at Morgan, who couldn’t see it.

Then it flashed a longing, heartfelt smile at Stephen, before fading away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask me how I know about the kind of anxiety attacks Pepper had here :D (On second thought, please don’t.) 
> 
> In my head, the song they danced to was [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US54WUTl4-o). But this is open to reinterpretation.


End file.
